Every situation has a silver lining – discover a mindset that heals and enlightens.
October 12, 2021 · 7 min read
The final proof of greatness lies in being able to endure criticism without resentment. - Elbert Hubbard
Have you ever wondered how people accomplish astonishing achievements?
Have you ever wondered how people simply get what they want?
Do you want to be one of them?
The truth is, some great minds are born, and some great minds are made. As we can’t control our genes, the only variable we can change is our environment and how we perceive it.
That’s enough for you to acquire a great mind and achieve whatever you please.
What is a great mind?
A great mind is a person’s ability to think exceptionally well and make distinctive decisions. In other words, a great mind differentiates from an average mind significantly due to the characteristics it possesses.
It’s important to note that there are different kinds of great minds just as average minds. Defining both great minds and average minds is a challenge because it’s impossible to attach characteristics which could define everybody on the same level in the world.
Every mind is different regardless of belonging to the same group, such as “great minds” or “average minds”.
What defines a great mind?
A great mind can be best defined by its achievements. That’s the only valid way to differentiate whether a person possesses an exceptional mind.
While it’s possible to differentiate and partially recognize a great mind without judging its achievements, but that might not be the most accurate way to define it.
It’s worth mentioning that basic IQ doesn’t define a great mind entirely. There are a variety of IQ branches, such as musical, interpersonal, spatial, logical-mathematical and others. Therefore, it’s important to get this misconception out of the way.
10 Signs of a great mind
There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth. - Leo Tolstoy
Here are a few signs that may inform you about having a great mind:
- Smart work instead of more work.
- Seeking for excellence.
- Having ambitions and goals.
- Positive outlook.
- Perseverance and patience.
- Critical thinking.
- Accepting feedback as improvement opportunity.
- Ability to think independently.
- Ability to control emotions.
- Flexibility and adaptability.
What separates a great mind from an average mind?
A great mind, unlike an average mind, trains its brains differently in terms of processing information, creativity, emotional intelligence, perceiving people and environment, utilizing senses to maximum capacity.
An average mind thinks more on a surface level instead of thinking deeper. An average mind often misses on emotional intelligence, positivity, perseverance, and smart work. Missing out on these traits frequently lead to negative thoughts and inability to expose oneself to full potential.
It’s frequent (but not always the case!) that an average mind tends not to take personal responsibility for its own actions. For example, a person will be blaming the environment instead of himself for being unsuccessful.
How do great minds think?
Great minds’ thinking is based on ability to compare experiences. Finding differences between the existing thoughts and environment lets a great mind to differentiate known and new information.
Great minds also think with the help of critical consciousness. Ability to perceive contradicting and different perceptions of life open for new and revolutionary thoughts.
Such thinking requires to have as much awareness as possible. It helps to have a better insight of your beliefs and evaluate them properly. In other words, you’re not attached to your emotions and comfort thinking.
What makes a great mind?
An ability to look wider and not to stay in comfort thinking makes a great mind. Accepting “impossible” or difficult challenges are one of the most important characteristics of a great mind.
Creativity means believing you have greatness. - Dr. Wayne W. Dyer
A great mind can be abstractly summarized to be made of creativity. That’s because creativity allows to have an open mind which is a way to perceive world differently and be exposed for new changes. It was found that creativity is one of the characteristics of intelligence.
Another important distinction of a great mind is social quotation. It’s the ability to know others and oneself. In simpler terms, that’s social intelligence, which is developed by interacting with other people. A positive correlation was found between social quotation and intelligence itself.
The greatest minds of the world
Greatest minds can be described in many ways. Some of the greatest minds are exceptional in social intelligence, some are extraordinary in innovative thinking, the others are in creative thinking. Therefore, this list certainly doesn’t cover every worthy person, but here I’ll give my best attempt.
- Michelangelo. He was an Italian painter, sculptor, architect and even an engineer. His numerous accomplishments during Renaissance age inspired further development of Western art.
- Sir Isaac Newton. He’s mostly known for proposing the groundbreaking laws of gravity and motions. Newton was a physicist, astronomer, theologian, mathematician.
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This bright composer had an enormous influence on the classical era of music. He has been showing his talented gifts of music since the early childhood.
- Aristotle. He is mostly known for his philosophies during ancient Greek period. His writings were the foundation for Christian and Islamic philosophies. Experts say that he might’ve been the last person on Earth that has known every subject.
- Albert Einstein. Not much needed to be said – everyone knows that the theory of relativity was proposed by this theoretical physicist who was born in Germany.
Those who have the ability to be grateful are the ones who have the ability to achieve greatness. - Steve Maraboli
There’s no emphasis that to be a great mind you have to possess achievements like people above. These are extraordinary examples for you to have a better understanding what it really means to be the greatest in the world.
To be above 95% people is achievable for everyone. Here I’ll give suggestions what you could do to accomplish that.
7 Ways to build a great mind
1. Nurture your mind
It doesn’t matter if you’ve born with the most privileged mind in the world.
It doesn’t matter much if you’ve born with average or below average mind.
If you’ll leave everything as it is, you’ll start losing your potential. A study has found that the more you educate yourself, the higher your intelligence is.
Pick something that you are interested in and start asking questions. For example, if you are interested in astronomy, ask yourself anything that first comes to your mind:
- Why do stars exist?
- What is the lifespan of stars?
- How do stars disappear and what happens next?
- How big is the universe?
- How did it happen in the first place that universe is that big?
- What is still unknown about universe?
You could make thousands of questions about a topic if you really wanted to.
It’s equally if not more important to understand the question to the answer. Learning and understanding are correlated, yet different concepts.
2. Do something different
It’s very easy to have a narrow mind if you only focus on one area. You’ll become shortsighted and perhaps even ignorant.
To prevent this, you have to pick a new area of interest that you’d have never thought of doing before. If you are heavily focused on logical thinking and reasoning, then, for example, consider picking up a musical instrument.
I can assure that everyone is interested at least in one instrument, whether that is a guitar, piano, dj mixing board, or something else.
Consequently, you’ll open your mind and broaden your views which can help you in your main field.
For an instance, if you are a furniture engineer, it’s a common practice to visit other factories that are not even related to furniture. A furniture engineer might be visiting automotive factory to gain some new ideas and apply them in their own field.
It’s a common technique to gain leverage in your field to stay on the top. Try to think of a field that could add up to your critical thinking and general skills assets.
3. Socialize
As it might be hard task for introverts, luckily, we live in digital era.
Socializing can be done on online forums, speaking platforms. However, the best way to interact with people is face-to-face for educational purposes.
Boosting your social quotation has a positive correlation with intelligence. That’s because you develop your soft skills and learn something from others.
Greatness, generally speaking, is an unusual quantity of a usual quality grafted upon a common man. -William Allen White
However, to get something positive from others, you must find a group of people that are preferably smarter than you. That’s the most efficient way to develop a great mindset.
If you can, it’s even better to find a mentor that can assist you in your field. Such person has tremendous amount of experience and can show you shortcuts to save more time. After learning majority of things, you can go deeper into your expertise on your own.
4. Build your perseverance
There’s one thing in common that every great mind has – perseverance.
Without perseverance it wouldn’t be possible to achieve any long-term goals. Certainly, we wouldn’t have any cars, aircrafts, and other technological benefits. We’d be living in a stone age.
Perseverance means doing something regardless of a difficulty a person endures.
Perseverance is the foundation to accomplish any goal in your life. Inability to focus on one thing for too long is a barrier that must be trespassed. Limitless mind has no barriers and can achieve anything it wants.
To build your perseverance, you have to strengthen it gradually. For example, if you’ve never worked for 14 hours a day, you might be able to work for 1 month in that regime. After that, you’ll burn out completely.
If you have a project that you’ve been thinking doing for a long time, consider starting it today just for 10 minutes. Then the next day you can do it for 20 minutes.
Start slow and don’t overwhelm yourself.
5. Set realistic goals
Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds. - Albert Einstein
While great minds try validating themselves by achieving big goals, that can be daunting and look insane at first. For example, you’d want to earn $100,000 net in a month with your business. While it’s certainly achievable, at the beginning it can be just too much to grasp.
You shouldn’t just throw this goal into a thrash can. Instead, keep that as your main goal. Then, divide it in sections. For example, set an initial goal to earn $100 from your business. Then, go for $1,000. After that seek for $5,000.
Do small increments and you’ll eventually become more confident about yourself and no goal will look impossible.
A very common problem of an average mind is to set unrealistic goals. After putting a lot of work, they notice that they’re nowhere close to their goal. As a result, they quit because of negative thoughts.
Furthermore, people don’t know their limits and strengths well. That’s another reason to set easier goals and enjoy small victories instead.
6. Time management
To get the most out of your perseverance, I highly consider managing your time. Time management is an essential soft skill whose basics can be learnt in hours, if not minutes. Spending some time and researching how to manage your time can help you save hours, days and even months of work.
As you can probably tell, time management has some benefits:
- Prioritizing “vital” tasks.
- Ability to control your working hours more efficiently.
- Increasing your productivity.
- Ability to visualize your goals and tasks to understand them better.
- Makes you to set more realistic goals.
- Ability to foresee approximate time needed to complete a project.
What I love about time management is the ability to forecast how much time will be needed to complete a task. As a result, you’ll be able to set achievable goals.
In general, everyone who wants to achieve success and who values his or her time must adopt time management skills. It not only helps you to become more efficient at work, but that will also help you to find time for your hobbies, family, and friends.
This example is applicable to every situation of your life: relationships, fixing a car, buying your first rental property, finding happiness, etc.
Limitless mind is an animal that you have to tame. To achieve anything you want in life, you’ll have to put in the effort.
7. Importance of positivity and happiness
Whatever goal we are trying to achieve, it’s always vital to emphasize the importance of happiness and positivity.
If we don’t believe in our goal, we’ll create negative associations and we’ll unconsciously fear whether our goal is achievable. A seed of fear and doubt grows to a tall tree which covers the light of hope that we need so much.
Always be a first rate version of yourself and not a second rate version of someone else. - Judy Garland
Positivity not only helps to believe in our goal, but also to become more productive. In addition, positive thoughts are linked in reduced stress and anxiety levels. Well-being and passion for the goal are inseparable combination for any success.
The emphasis in modern society to achieve our goals is too high. People fall into a trap of thinking that they’ll become happy only when they’ll achieve their goal.
That’s a false and incorrect perception.
The key to happiness and productivity is to enjoy the present moment. The reason for that is very simple and logically well-grounded.
When a person achieves his goal, he temporarily feels happiness. Then, the happiness evaporates and a bigger goal replaces the last one. Consequently, a person falls into a hamster wheel trap and keeps chasing his dream once again.
To avoid that, you need to set small goals and feel as much happiness as possible. According to psychologist Shawn Achor, you can increase your productivity somewhere from 20-30% just by approaching your work in a happy state.
Here I’d highly suggest you watching his catchy and informative video about happiness:
Final Words From Delightful Mindset
Great minds are made from passion, happiness, positivity, and critical consciousness.
Keep in mind that great mindset depends mostly on open outlook of the world, creativity, and positivity. Take your own pace and work on your mind. Just like any muscle in your body, your mind has to be trained too.
The more love you give to your mind, the more benefits you receive. Be happy with who you are and become the best version of yourself.